Part 34 (1/2)
CHAPTER 21
For the next two weeks Eleanor made a heroic effort to follow Quin's advice and be nice to Madam. She wanted, with all her heart, to gain her point peacefully, and she also wanted Quin's approval of what she was doing. In spite of his obvious adoration, she frequently detected a note of criticism in his voice, that, while it piqued her, also stirred her conscience and made her see things in a new and disturbing light. For the first time, she began to wonder if she could be partly to blame for the friction that always existed between herself and her grandmother. She certainly had taken an unholy joy in flaunting her Martel characteristics in the old lady's face. It was not that she preferred to identify herself with her mother's family rather than with her father's. The Martel s.h.i.+ftlessness and visionary improvidence were quite as intolerable to her as the iron-clad conventions of the Bartletts. She could take correction from Aunt Isobel and Aunt Enid, but there was something in her grandmother's caustic comments that made her tingle with instant opposition, as a delicate vase will s.h.i.+ver at the sound of its own vibration.
During the days before the wedding she surprised herself by her docility and acquiescence in all that was proposed for her. She even accepted without demur the white swiss and blue ribbons that a week before she had considered entirely too infantile for an adult maid of honor. This particular exhibition of virtue was due to the exemplary behavior of the bride herself. Miss Enid had longed for the regulation white satin, tulle veil, and orange blossoms; but Madam had promptly cited the case of the old maid who waited so long to marry that her orange blossoms turned to oranges.
Miss Enid was married in a sober traveling dress, and carried a prayer-book. She and Mr. Chester stood in front of the drawing-room mantel, where twenty years before Madam had expressed her opinion concerning sentimental young fools who thought they could live on fifteen dollars a week.
The budding romance, s.n.a.t.c.hed ruthlessly up and flung into the dust-heap of common sense, had lain dormant all these years, until Quinby Graham had stumbled upon its dried old roots, and planted them once again in the garden of dreams.
Why is it that we will breathlessly follow the callowest youth and the silliest maiden through the most intricate labyrinth of love, never losing interest until they drop safely into one another's arms, and yet when two seasoned, mellowed human beings tried by life and found worthy of the prize of love, dare lift a sentimental lid or sigh a word of romance, we straightway howl with derision?
It was not until Eleanor stood beside the elderly bride that the affair ceased to be funny to her. For the first time, she saw something pathetic and beautiful in the permanence of a love that, starved and thwarted and blasted by ridicule, could survive the years and make two faded, middle-aged people like Aunt Enid and Mr. Chester eager to drain the dregs of life together, when they had been denied the good red wine.
Her eyes wandered from their worn, elated faces to the rows of solemn figures behind them. Madam, as usual, dominated the scene. Her portrait gazed in portentously from the hall; her marble bust gleamed from a distant corner; and she herself, the most resplendent person present, sat in a chair of state placed like a proscenium-box, and critically observed the performance.
”If she only _wouldn't_ curl her lip like that!” thought Eleanor shudderingly; then she remembered her resolution and looked at Quin.
He too was looking preternaturally solemn, and his lips were moving softly in unison with Mr. Chester's. If Eleanor could have heard those inaudible responses she would have been startled by the words: ”I, Quinby, take thee, Eleanor.” But she only observed that he was lost in a day-dream, and that she had never seen him look so nice.
Indeed, he was a very different-looking person from the boy that six months ago had mortified her by his appearance at her Easter party in ”the cla.s.siest coat in the market.” The propriety of his garments made her suspect that Uncle Ranny had had a hand in their selection.
”And I like the way he's got his hair slicked back,” she thought. ”I wonder how he ever managed it?”
After the wedding breakfast, which was a lavish one, and the departure of the bride and groom, for California, where they were to make their future home, Madam summoned Eleanor.
”There's no use in you and Quin Graham staying here with all these fossils,” she said, lowering her voice. ”People hate to go home from a wedding almost as much as they do from a funeral! You two take this and go to a matinee.”
This unexpected concession to Eleanor's weakness touched her deeply. She flew into the hall to tell Quin, and then rushed upstairs to change her dress.
”I believe the scheme is working!” she said joyously, as she and Quin sat in the theater waiting for the curtain to rise. ”Grandmother has been peaches and cream to me all week. This morning she capped the climax by giving me a check for a hundred dollars to buy a gold mesh bag.”
”A _what!_” cried Quin, aghast.
”A mesh bag. But I am not going to get it. I sent the check to Rose. It has nearly killed me not to have a penny to send them all summer, and this came just in time. Have you heard about Myrna?”
”Being asked to spend the winter at Mrs. Ranny's? I should say I have!
She's the happiest kid alive.”
”And grandmother has even stood for that! It's a perfect scream to hear her bragging about 'my son's farm.' She will be talking about 'my daughter's husband' next.”
”Queen Vic's all right,” Quin declared stoutly. ”Her only trouble is that she's been trying to play baseball by herself; she's got to learn team-work.”
The play happened to be ”The Better 'Ole”; and from the moment the curtain rose Eleanor was oblivious to everything but the humor and pathos and glory of the story. She followed with ready tears and smiles the adventures of the three Tommies; she thrilled to the sentimental songs beside the stage camp fire; she laughed at the antics of the incomparable Corporal Bill. It was not until the second act that she became conscious of the queer behavior of her companion.
Quin sat hunched up in his wedding suit, his jaw set like a vise, staring solemnly into s.p.a.ce with an expression she had never seen in his face before. He seemed to have forgotten where he was and whom he was with.
His hand had crushed the program into a ball, and his breath came short, as it always did when he was excited or over-exerted.
Eleanor, whose emotions up to now had been pleasantly and superficially stirred, suddenly saw the play from a new angle. With quick imagination she visualized the great reality of which all this was but a clever sham.